We live in the most comfortable era in history. In the developed world, life is easier, more predictable and safer than ever, something unimaginable for previous generations, still so close to us. We have food, transport, healthcare, entertainment and even relationships just a click away. We have never been so protected and with so much at our disposal. But, in this scenario of abundance, there is a question that arises: we live longer, but do we live happy and healthy years?
The numbers suggest not. The prevalence of chronic physical and mental illnesses in developed countries continues to increase at alarming rates. How is it possible that, surrounded by comfort and progress, we are increasingly sick and unhappy? This ease hides a profound paradox – what previously allowed us to survive now seems to be sabotaging our well-being.
At the heart of this discrepancy is the speed of change in our environment. The current lifestyle has existed for just over 100 years, an instant compared to the 200,000 years of evolutionary history of our species.
The environment has radically transformed, but the body and brain we inhabit remain almost the same as those of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. What was once scarcity, risk and unpredictability has been replaced by abundance, protection and comfort. However, evolution does not keep pace with technological innovation. We live, therefore, in the mismatch of an ancestral body trying to adapt to a modern world.
Our organism was shaped to resist hostile environments and scarcity, not to thrive in scenarios of security and abundance. We remain programmed to escape cold, hunger, physical discomfort and tiredness, and to seek warmth, foods high in sugar and fat, social connections, rest and pleasure. It was these automatic responses that guaranteed our survival. But in the present, where physical danger has (almost) disappeared and pleasures are limitless, this programming can become counterproductive.
The threat and stress response system, designed to react to predators or enemies in an unpredictable environment, now triggers upon notifications on your cell phone, a e-mail urgent, a meeting with the boss, financial problems or traffic. The pleasure and reward system, thought to be activated occasionally and reinforce behaviors beneficial to our survival, is continually bombarded by ultra-processed and high-calorie food, instant purchases, series and social networks. The result is a body permanently on alert and a brain constantly stimulated.
Our increasingly sophisticated and technologically assisted attempts to follow our primal instincts to avoid danger and discomfort and seek pleasure have led us to the opposite extreme – we are too comfortable and overexposed to pleasure, far beyond what our biology can process. It is in this cycle that we get sick. Too protected from discomfort to develop resilience, too exposed to pleasure to be able to enjoy it.
When we simply follow our ancestral instincts, avoiding effort and choosing the easiest and most pleasurable path, we enter into an automatic pilot that perpetuates stress, dissatisfaction and exhaustion. What was once a survival strategy has become a silent trap. Breaking out of this cycle starts with a change in perspective. We need to recognize that our biology was not designed to make us happy, but to keep us alive in unsafe environments. Today, fortunately, threats are no longer mostly physical, but result from the mismatch between our instincts and the world we build. We are not doomed, but change requires awareness, effort and deliberate choices.
We cannot accelerate evolution, but we can learn to live in greater harmony with the body we inherited. The invitation is to take advantage of the luck and security in which we live today, and optimize our biology not just to live longer, but to live better. I believe that this involves recovering practices that often go against our most primitive instincts, that challenge and strengthen us: tolerating some discomfort, moving more, eating healthy food, enjoying silence and boredom, cultivating real relationships, getting quality rest… Small daily choices that, together, rebalance the system and allow us to live in a more balanced and healthy way.
Ultimately, the point is not to eliminate comfort, but to not let ourselves be put to sleep by it. The challenge of modern life is not to survive, it is to ‘live’ better in the midst of so much ease and comfort.